I have been wanting to see BODY COUNT for years. Not Ice-T’s band (I saw them on the Lollapalooza tour in 1991) or Ice-T’s 1997 film (which I reviewed last Christmas) but the 1995 movie starring Brigitte Nielsen. Or so I thought based on the cover. And when I realized Sonny Chiba was also in it I finally pulled the trigger. R.I.P. to the legend.
This is an American movie, of course, and obviously not up to par with the movies that made us love Chiba. It’s one of those B- movies where everything is cheap and trashy, the music (credited to Don Peake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES and Knight Rider fame) alternates between repetitive synth bullshit and inappropriate bombast, and the main cop characters are dreadfully boring but every once in a while there’s a car flip or a high fall stunt, and each of the male leads does at least one gratuitous somersault and hangs off of a moving vehicle. Also Chiba’s character causes a school bus to flip and then two other vehicles crash into it and blow up. So I didn’t feel my time was entirely wasted.
(Stunt coordinator/second unit director: BJ Davis [AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION, ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION]. Fight coordinator: Ed Anders [stunts: NINJA III: THE DOMINATION]). (read the rest of this shit…)
